In the last week I've been corresponding with an old high school classmate of mine (all right--ALL of my classmates are "old") about a variety of political issues. Since we were both on the debate team in those days, I guess our contentiousness goes back a long way. He's a graduate of the Air Force Academy and helped develop "Star Wars" technology back in the '80s; his favorite President since we graduated is Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, I'm the vegetarian, Conscientious Objector who has never fired a gun in his entire life. Jeez, I bet you can imagine where this is leading! The results are as predictable as a chemistry demonstration in which two compounds are combined that blow up the lab. The exchanges have been sufficiently voluminous and detailed that I can hardly do justice to them all here. So I'll only focus on a few.
I invited my old chum (let's call him Kyle--not his real name) to read a book that I am just finishing: The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama. (Perhaps you've heard of Obama--he ran for President this past fall.) I thought to myself, if only Kyle would at least read what Obama has to say so he could, at minimum, take the horns and the pitchfork off his picture of the man. (And, by the way, I do recommend the book as a good way to better understand our current CEO.) But after repeated urgings to do so, Kyle has said no, no, and no--he knows Obama by his deeds and his policies, and he would learn nothing by reading the book. Moreover, Obama didn't even write the book--someone else did--so what would be the point? And besides, in Kyle's view, a lot of "tyrants" have written "thoughtful books"--they are just words. So I told Kyle to pretend that I had written it, and that it represented my view of the world (which it pretty much does), and to react to it on that level, but he still wouldn't bite.
Well, OK Kyle, if you won't read the book, can you say ANYTHING positive about Obama? (When I saw Kyle in person a couple of weeks ago, I said, "I'll say something positive about George Bush if you'll say one positive thing about Barack Obama." But he flat-out refused to say anything.) Now, after 7 or 8 e-mail messages, Kyle has yet to offer even his first concession that Obama must believe or must be doing SOMETHING right. Let's just say that Kyle has very firm views.
In fact, Kyle does not even believe that Obama IS the President, in a legalistic sense. I was unaware, sorry to say, that there are people out there who believe that Obama does not meet the citizenship requirements specified in the Constitution for his office--i.e., he's not actually a natural born citizen. I am highly skeptical that this argument is going to go anywhere out in the real world, but Kyle thinks that there could be a "Constitutional crisis" in our future. Stay tuned.
Among his more recent notes, I was particularly struck by his comment that our success in Iraq "speaks for itself." Even a pro-invasion person, it seems to me, ought to see the complexity of such a claim, its good news/very bad news dimensions. A trillion tax dollars down the drain, more than 4,000 U.S. service personnel killed and thousands more injured, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis either killed or displaced, and plenty of new recruits for al-Qaeda? Those things speak for themselves as well.
Anyway, Kyle--bright as he is, even brilliant--is in a whole different universe than I am, and I need to consider whether it's a good investment of my time to continue our exchanges. I think that I have tried to concede what I can to him, but concessions are not part of Kyle's approach. But as I mentioned to him, one of Obama's goals--which he cynically dismissed--is to bring people like him and me together. And although that's a tall order, I respect Obama for wanting to try; it has been his theme ever since he gave the "no red states, no blue states" speech back in '04. Kyle, give the guy a chance--he's really not the devil!
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